Louis Peter

Louis Peter

Friedrich Ludwig "Louis" Peter (born February 28, 1841 in Alleringhausen , Principality of Waldeck ; † February 26, 1921 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German entrepreneur and founder of the Mitteldeutsche Gummiwarenfabrik Louis Peter AG in Frankfurt am Main. He became a pioneer in the rubber goods industry and pneumatic tires.

Life

Factories on original invoice from Peter´s Union

Peter was a son of the farmer Carl Heinrich Peter in Alleringhausen and his wife Maria Louise Fieseler from Flechtdorf . He had six siblings and three daughters. Friedrich Ludwig first worked as an ox farmhand in Lengefeld near Korbach . He did his military service in the 3rd Kurhessian Infantry Regiment No. 83. In 1863 he moved to Frankfurt and found a job in a rubber goods store. At that time he renamed himself Louis. When the Austro-Prussian War broke out in 1866 , Louis Peter was deployed on the Prussian side. After the war he did not get his job again and in 1867 he founded his own rubber goods store in Frankfurt's Kaiserstraße  15. On January 28, 1870, he married Margarethe Klaus (born January 1, 1850 in Langenlonsheim ; † December 18, 1907). In the early days of the company , he started his own business on March 1, 1872, with a rubber factory for water and beer hoses as well as technical and surgical rubber articles as a producer in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen . In 1893 he moved his production to a newly built factory building at Mainzer Landstrasse 196 in Frankfurt am Main .

In 1905 he converted his company into a stock corporation . In the same year Louis was appointed to the Commerce Council. From 1907 he built a branch of his company behind the Korbach main train station . The administration building was completed in 1910. Since 1910, the Korbach plant has been specializing in bicycle tires and manufacturing car and motorcycle tires in Frankfurt. After a crisis in the rubber industry, he had to leave the board of directors of his company in 1912 . However, his nephew Heinrich Peter managed to buy back the shares with the help of the "Liga-Gummiwerke Heinrich Peter & Co GmbH" in Frankfurt-Hausen , which he founded in 1911 , so that Louis Peter was re-elected to the supervisory board in January 1921, shortly before he became passed away. Louis Peter is buried in crypt 20 in the main cemetery in Frankfurt . A severe fire destroyed the factory in Hausen on June 17, 1923. In 1929 Peter's Union AG merged with the Frankfurt a. M. and Korbach, the Liga-Gummiwerke Heinrich Peter AG, the Hannoversche Gummiwerke Excelsior AG and the Polack-Titan AG to the Continental Gummiwerke AG .

Due to the economic crisis in 1930, Continental had to close the plant in Frankfurt. The Louis Peter factory in Obertshausen near Rodgau burned out in 1933. Louis Peter built the Villa Peterhof on Medebacher Landstrasse in Korbach in 1905 ; In 1905 he donated the neo-Gothic style church in his home village of Alleringhausen, which was inaugurated in the presence of the Waldeck prince. Streets and schools in Korbach are named after him.

His nephews Heinrich and Friedrich "Fritz", who were both born in Alleringhausen, continued to work in the rubber industry later and founded the companies Peters Pneu Renova and Hessische Gummiwerke Fritz Peter AG in Klein-Auheim . The Korbach plant has been expanded several times by Continental and employs around 3,400 people. It is one of the most important employers in the Waldeck-Frankenberg district . Louis Peter is an honorary citizen of the city of Korbach.

literature

• Helm, Wienkötter: History of pneumatic tires and Peters Union AG. Frankfurt a. M. 1930.
• City archive Korbach (ed.): Kommerzienrat Louis Peter - his life and work. Korbach 1991.

Web links

• Hans Christoph Graf von Seherr-Thoß: Peter, Louis. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie 20 (2001), p. 234 f.
• Louis Peter - From servant to millionaire. HNA, Regiowiki.
• Frankfurt main cemetery, description of the crypt 20